Massive media contingent not daunted by camera ban

Credit: Angela Rowlings

DAY IN COURT: Steve Davis, brother of Debra Davis, who was allegedly killed by James Bulger in 1981, speaks with reporters yesterday at the Moakley courthouse.

Is it really the trial of the century if only a few can see it?

The long-awaited, historic case against James “Whitey” Bulger kicks off today with jury instructions at the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in South Boston, but thanks to the federal court’s ban on cameras, the closest viewers will get to seeing the 83-year-old reputed mob boss is in a courtroom sketch — or maybe when officers rush him in and out of the courthouse.

The prospect has the massive contingent of TV reporters slated to cover the trial gnashing their teeth.

“An entire trial can come down to a moment between a prosecutor and a witness,” said Fox 25 reporter Bob Ward.

“I think we all have a lot of work cut out for us to make this make sense,” said WBZ reporter Jim Armstrong, who noted that the trial is expected to last at least through August, with about 160 potential witnesses on the docket.

The advantage in coverage will go to newspapers, but the BBC, CNN and Fox News Channel, along with local TV stations, are among the almost 50 organizations that have obtained media credentials with the courthouse. The draconian, camera-free rules are not daunting them.

“We like a criminal with an edge,” said Richard Downes, Washington correspondent for the RTE, Ireland’s national public service broadcaster, calling Whitey the Irish equivalent to “The Godfather’s” Michael Corleone.

He’s practically a mythical figure in Ireland, said Downes, in part for his alleged gunrunning to the IRA in the 1980s, and in part for the almost 20 years he evaded authorities.

“If you wrote it up, his life as fiction, it would be too neat, too wacky, too crazy. No one would believe it,” Downes said.

The magnitude of Bulger’s crimes and history dwarfs normal court TV fare — like the Jodi Arias trial, which managed to rivet the nation with a simple girl-kills-boy case.

“This is the United States putting Whitey Bulger on trial for a number of crimes and Whitey Bulger putting the United States on trial for a number of crimes they’ll be hard-pressed to deny,” said John Miller, CBS news correspondent and a former FBI assistant director who served after Bulger’s days as an informant and before he was captured. “Was this the story of a rogue agent (John Connolly) and his mishandling of a top informant and an organization turning a blind eye?”

While the national media outlets are expected to swing in and out of Boston as the trial ebbs and flows, locally, at least, the stations are gearing up for what promises to be the real-life, can’t-miss soap for the summer. The lack of video does not alarm them.

“The quotes will be so strong, people will get a good sense of what’s going on,” Ward predicted.